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The book narrates about the conflict between modern medicine and the ancient beliefs amongst Hmong culture.The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a book written about the life of Lia Lee. Lia is a Hmong child living with epilepsy in America. Her devastating story shows the risks and dangers of cross-cultural communication in the medical field. The book details an account of the fight over the body and soul of this sick girl. The author provides unbiased and balanced view of what happened, by sympathizing with the doctors and the girl’s family. The book delivers a challenge to readers to their view of divinity and medicine.
At the age of 3 months old, Lia’s older sibling Yer slammed a door and at that instant Lia had her first seizure. Foua and Nao Kao, Lia’s parents, are convinced that the bang of the door shutting caused her soul to flee and escape her body. Hmong culture diagnosed her illness as quag dab peg, “the spirit catches you and you fall down.” The Hmong culture thought that
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This emphasizes that the general public must be more sensitive to different cultural aspects. Culture, as seen in the book, plays a significant role. Hmong history spans around family structure, food, rituals, and religions and so on. The Hmong believed that diseases were caused by spiritual. There are certain aspects of the Hmong culture like taboos leveled against the medical procedures, the origins of diseases and power, often conflicts with the western culture like medicine (Fadiman, 1997). The Laos believed that they could get away with evil spirits and the ability to retrieve the lost souls of their loved ones. They also practiced animal sacrifices to appease the ancestors in a shamanic ceremony usually held once a year. The Americans have even accused Laos of killing their dogs for their animal sacrifices, and this led to a misunderstanding between the two
She heard about the Hmong through a friend, and so she spent 4 years living in Merced, California and another 5 writing this book. She attempts to stay fairly neutral in her writing, though through her time with the Lees, she confesses that her writing may appear biased toward the Hmong culture rather than toward the Americans. However, in the end she could not blame one side or the other for the unfortunate tragedy of Lia, who got hit in the cross-fire between these two cultures. Her theoretical view is a type of cultural relativism. Neither the Hmong nor the Americans could emerge as the better culture. She does not address any questions about direct unethical practices. The Hmong did not practice human sacrifices, and the animals they did sacrifice were theirs. She does seem to believe that every culture has its weak and strong
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become shaman, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spirits, and are held to those having high morale character, so to Lia's parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, the disease was both a gift and a curse. The main question in this case was could Lia have survived if her parent's and the doctors overcame the miscommunication, cultural racism, and the western way of medicine.
Anthropological studies on language and communication would be directly related to Lia’s case for a few reasons: Lia and her family were Hmong, her parents could not read or write, they didn’t give her enough medication. Also, Lia was taken away from her parents because of language and communication barriers that led to her parents not administering her medication at all, as well as interpreters not being clear about what to give her.
In the book The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down, ethnocentrism can also be seen. Throughout the book the family and the doctors have different ideas of medicine/healing techniques are often disagreed on. It’s important for the doctor to see that biomedicine has its own intentions of saving patient through standard procedures and beliefs. Understanding those terms will shed some light on the culture of the patient, which has their own intentions, beliefs, and rules as well. Breaking down ethnocentrism to find an agreement is a good goal to accomplish in order have successful prognosis and healing. In addition, shedding the ethnocentrism will allow the doctors to see the different cultural beliefs and not judge right away. Although, some cultural remedies may not always work, it’s wrong for people to have the mindset of ethnocentrism without even considering their beliefs first.
Union between two quarrelsome objects can be the most amazing creation in certain situations, take for instance, water. Originally, water was just hydroxide and hydrogen ions, but together these two molecules formed a crucial source of survival for most walks of life. That is how marriage can feel, it is the start of a union that without this union the world would not be the same. A Hmong mother, Foua took it upon herself to perform a marriage ceremony for the author of “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman. In this miniscule event, two cultures with completely conflicting ideas came together to form a union. In this union, an American was celebrating an event in a Hmong way, truly a collision of two cultures.
The Vietnam War caused great destruction in Laos, and so the Lee family migrated to America, after spending a short time in refugee camps in Thailand. After settling in America, Foua gives birth to Lia, who unbeknownst to them will suffer from epilepsy soon after she is born. For four years, little Lia is admitted to hospital seventeen times, after suffering both grand and petit mal seizures. Through miscommunication and a failure to understand each other’s cultural differences, both the parents of Lia, and her American doctors, are ultimately at fault for Lia’s tragic fate, when she is left in a vegetative state.
When comparing the healing philosophy that underpins healing practices of the indigenous tribes it’s evident that all cultures share similar beliefs.
Though Lia’s parents and her doctors wanted the best for her, the above barriers were creating a hindrance to her treatment. They both were not understanding each other and the interpreter was also not there, doctors wanted to transfer her to another best hospital because they were not getting with her disease but her parents misunderstood the situation and thought they were shifting her for their own benefit. In expansion to these convictions, Hmong likewise have numerous traditions and folks that are negotiated by those of the American standard and therapeutic groups; for instance, some Hmong customarily perform custom creature sacrifice and in view of extremely particular entombment customs and the alarm of every human's numerous souls potentially getting away from, the accepted Hmong convictions don't consider anybody experiencing obtrusive restorative surgery. The Hmong medicinal framework is dependent upon nature-based hypothesis that lets life stream as it may be, while the western restorative framework is dependent upon the modernized humanism-based medicinal science. So when Lia was dealt with by the American specialist with western pharmaceutical, Lia's guardians don't concur with them....
The Hmong culture is evidence that health worlds exist. Health worlds exist in which health is understood in terms of its social and religious context (SITE BOOK). Spiritual beliefs in the Hmong culture are strongly connected to their view and description of health and illness (SITE 6). Illness in the Hmong culture is believed to be caused by evil spirits, a curse from an unhappy ancestor, or a separation of the soul from the body (California Department of Health Services, 2004). Paja Thao, the shaman in “The Split Horn” emphasizes his belief that a soul can separate from its body and the failure to return back to the body is a sign that the individual will become ill. Like the Chinese concept of ‘Ying and Yang’, Hmong people believe that the balance between the body and soul determines perfect health. Paja Thao believes that a body is attached to seven souls, and when there is a loss in a soul, illness occurs. In contrast to this holistic concept that the Hmong’s believe in, the Western culture is not able to predict when illnesses will occur. Instead, the dominant biomedical model of health focuses on preventing depression through a healthy life style, such as exercise and nutrition
I chose Cambodian Americans for my target culture because it was a place I knew very little about. My ignorance of that side of the world is laughable to say the least. Cambodian American was a great choice because both the people and the culture are very captivating to me. While some Cambodian Americans become very westernized, accepting most of America’s cultural norms, some hold strong to their Cambodian traditions and way of life. Through Geert Hofstede’s Taxonomy, I will explore the dynamics of the Cambodian American culture. Through Identity, Hierarchy, Gender, Truth and Virtue I will attempt to describe a culture previously virtually unknown to me. I chose Hofstede’s Taxonomy over Bond’s because Michael Bond himself told me to. “Charlotte, I did this work in the 1980's, and found that 3 of my 4 nation-level dimensions overlapped with Hofstede's and one was distinct.” said Bond to me when I asked him to elaborate on his taxonomy.
For example, when Uncle Po got sick and was admitted into the hospital, a couple of the Hmong people decided to go visit him. When they went, they checked to see if his nose is broken, because a broken nose indicates if a person will die soon. They noticed he did have a broken nose, and knew he was going to die soon. They all started preparing for his death. The Hmong people have an extensive funeral for him, which involves a chicken so the chicken can help him find his soul in the afterworld (McSilver & Siegle). Hmong people rely heavily on culture and the area around them when it comes to health and wellbeing. In Western culture, people usually wait for the doctor to announce a person dead. They also do not send a chicken with that person so when the person finds their soul, the chicken can co. Western culture is heavily dependent on the doctors orders, as it is assumed that the doctor knows
The Hmong culture is firmly rooted in their spiritual belief in animism, ancestral worship and reincarnation. These beliefs connect them to their sense of health and well-being. They view illness as having either a natural or spiritual cause. A spiritual cause results in a “loss of souls” or is an action or misdeed that may have offended an ancestor’s spirit (California Department of Health Services, 2004, Purnell, 2013, p. 317). The soul escapes the body and may not be able to find its way back home.
Share the story of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.
My personal experience with a special client was when a baby needed to have an IV place in head and this was a life or death situation. The Hmong family did not want to let the medical staff place an IV in the baby’s head because of their beliefs cultural belief that head sacred because the soul of the individual lives there and placing an IV could startle the soul out of the body. We had a Hmong interpreter but she was not getting anywhere with the family. I observed the family and noticed that two of the teenagers (ages 16 and 17) spoke English, I asked them to step outside in the hall and explained to them that if the baby did not get the IV that the baby would die, I know that your beliefs are very important to your family, but I feel in this situation that the baby’s soul will be ok, the baby needs this IV to be placed to keep him alive. Could you explain this to your parents, I will get everyone out of the room so you can discuss this with your family. Just come out and let me know what your family has decided. The teenagers were able to convince their parents to let the medical staff place the IV. The baby was then transferred to UC Davis Medical
“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” According to Buddha, everyone needs some form of spirituality to define his or her life and existence. Webster Dictionary defines spiritualism as “a system of beliefs or religious practices based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, often times through mediums.” Though this is one general definition of spiritualism, this concept is one that does not hold a conclusive meaning. Each and every single person has the ability and right to create and practice their own idea of spiritualism. From ancient times to present day, the term and practice of spirituality has transformed, particularly from region to region. Despite the discrepancies in practices and overall understanding of this idea, spirituality has had an effect and impact upon all of humanity since the creation of time. This religion that is believed to have been established in the early eighteen hundreds, after two little girls claimed to have the ability to talk to spirits, sparked interest in this spiritual movement, allowing it to spread rather rapidly over many geographical locations. Aside from being recognized as a religion, spiritualism is also believed to be a form of philosophy and a science in which spiritualists believe that there is life after death and try to demonstrate this through the ability of attempting to communicate with those that have passed on. Spiritualism was socially different from other religions in existence at the time because it presented followers with a more tolerant belief system that assimilated the principles and facts from a selection the world's religions. Spiritualism also made it acceptable for women to play a disti...